


All The Things We’re Not

by AnOddSock



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Anal Plug, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Breathplay, Brief mention of somnophilia, Caning, Captivity, Chains, Changing Tenses, Cock & Ball Torture, Collars, Confinement, Corporal Punishment, Derogatory Language, Evil version of a character, Gags, Humiliation, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, M/M, Nipple Torture, No Lube, Non-Linear Narrative, Out of Character, Physical Abuse, Rape, Rough Sex, Sadism, Sam Winchester Whump, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Violence, Strangulation, The comfort part contains a dog - the saving grace for this fic really, Torture, Trauma, Traumatized Sam Winchester, Whipping, beatings, stress positions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-21 11:07:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15556365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnOddSock/pseuds/AnOddSock
Summary: Sam is a poor labourer who falls in love with a newly arrived Lord of the Manor. They're good for each each, happy, or so Sam thinks.When he realises too late that he's wrong he has a long time to regret all of the mistakes that led him here, to the point of being broken and beaten and dirty - prisoner in a small shambling hut that he can't find a way to escape.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We can chalk this one down to me needing an outlet to pour some angst into it.  
> And the fact that I've watched too many period/costume dramas and sometimes the plots move really slowly, and my mind wanders...
> 
> If you think it sounds bad/triggering/too dark from the tags, and think you should skip this, please do! There's no redeeming quality from the antagonist, brutal without remorse.

Sam wakes in a haze, hands and feet frozen to numbness. Stretching to move is painful. Everything is painful these days, life has narrowed to nothing but bruises, welts, and intimate hurts that his brain will only skirt around the edges of thinking about.

But he has to move, has to be up and ready, his Master demands it and to refuse is not worth considering. There’s a rusted chamber pot beside the small rickety cot of a bed, and he has to use it now before he might be kept away from it all day.

Outside of the thin blanket it’s even colder, despite it seeming like it offered no protection at all. Bare chested, threadbare trousers, no shoes, there’s nothing much he can do to keep any warmer and he’s not sure how he’ll survive winter like this. Maybe Novak doesn’t expect him to, maybe it will be better if he doesn’t.

He relieves himself, hauling the scratchy trousers back up over the sore welts and cuts on his backside and bends slowly to kneel. The chain around his ankle keeps him close to the bed, but there’s just enough slack to assume the pose he’s expected to take in the presence of his betters.

Not that he thinks his Master is his better, that’s Novak’s words he reminds himself. Nevertheless, though it pains him to do so even more than just physically, he lowers his knees to the ground and waits. He seethes, anger burning bright and low in his mind while he wonders what horrors await today. He isn’t done with anger or defiance yet, not yet. But he swore to survive, to get away, and fighting back got him nowhere but weaker with worse wounds. So he turns, as always, the hatred and spite into a fierce will not to break or lose his mind and only to bend as much as he needs to get by.

It isn’t long before footsteps approach, an unrushed gait with a spring in the step. He can barely hear it until they're right outside the door and he’s glad again for the foresight to kneel ahead of time lest there isn’t chance once he gets here.

The rough hewn wooden door rattles in its hinges as the locks and bolts that keep it closed are undone, chinking and sliding until there’s nothing left to stop it swinging open. His heart pummels fast and hard, trying to beat out his chest in anticipation.

It’s always like this now, and he casts his mind back briefly to when it wasn’t, to when he found kindness and mischief in the blue eyes and sculpted face, not cruelty and leering hate. But those long days of Spring seem far away, and the sharp sting of the crop to his ass and the whip to his back and the chains chafing his wrists chase all good thoughts away.

It can’t ever be like that again.

 

* * *

 

Summer had been bustling in on Springs territory, bringing hot sweet days that made him sweat through his clothes. He worked hard, taking any job offered, a day labourer taking whatever slim pickings there were to grasp. The walk home had been long, and cutting across the manor house grounds shaved minutes of his time and saved energy after his meagre meals. Always too thin, just the wrong side of hungry.

He'd always kept to the edges of the grounds, sticking to the tree lines and hedges but the Lord was out one day, riding his fields or checking his boundaries.

Sam ran at the sound of hooves, but not fast enough. The dark haired man caught up with him, cornered just north of the place Sam would vault over the wall to head home.

He ducked his head as the horse approached, hat clutched in his hands.

“You know this is private property?” a gravelly voice enquired. It was deeper than Sam had expected.

“Yes, sorry m’lord, I didn't mean any harm, it's only,” he flicked his eyes upward, raising his head earning a startled look and little gasp from the other man. “Well it's quicker to get home this way, sir.”

The man stared at him for a long moment, eyes roving, before he said “Indeed, and you have such short legs to carry you home,” he smiled tightly and Sam grinned, not expecting a joke.

He bobbed his head, “I'll be out of your hair, I won't come this way again, didn't realise the house was occupied.”

“I've moved back in recently, finally making use of the inheritance,” the man said, rather shyly Sam thought. No hint of pride or disdain anywhere in his voice while he spoke to Sam.

“Enjoy your stay then, and welcome home,” Sam had said, jerking his head in a nod, polite and courteous.

He turned to leave but was stopped by the man saying, “If you do come by again, try to avoid trampling anymore wild flowers.”

Sam guiltily looked back at where he’d run without a thought and then turned again to the Lord, “I shall do my best, these big feet do get away from me sometimes."

They met many times like that until it seemed to Sam that the lord waited and looked for him at days end, hoping for a chance to speak. It was longer until he learned his name, James - Jimmy, he insisted - but from the beginning it was a gentle growing to know one another, a sweet story they were writing.

Not so anymore.

* * *

 

Lord Novak whistles as he enters the low stone hut where he keeps Sam, and on cue Sam drops his gaze, staring unseeing at the hard packed dirt floor of his prison.

“Good morning boy,” he says in that same grating voice that Sam once loved. “Ready to start the day?”

“Yes sir,” Sam parrots back, always answer swift - don't hesitate. The rules swim around in his head desperate to make sure he doesn’t forget a thing.

There's a low thud and Sam starts, catching sight of a bucket now sitting in the far corner. The door is already bolted home, Sam missed that, careless not to be paying attention he chides himself.

“How long since you last got clean?” Master asks.

“Four days, sir.” Sam thinks it's four, it feels like four.

“Well, we had better fix that hadn't we."

He steps close and Sam catches the smell of him, musky, with something floral cloying at the back of his throat - some soap or lotion Sam supposes. He tries not to recoil.

A fist in his hair forces his head back and up, wrenching his neck to an extreme arch. He catches sight of the striking blue eyes before he flicks his gaze lower again.

“No games, don't make me punish you.”

“No Master, I promise." Sam doesn't feel like fighting today anyway, too cold too sore too weak.

Roughly his ankle is freed and a kick to his feet gets him moving. He crawls haltingly across the room, no more than seventeen feet long, but far enough on bony knees.

Sam screws his face up against the sickening horror of undressing in front of Novak, finding reserves of strength to do it that he didn't know he had in him. Sometimes he's not sure why he's allowed clothes at all, he’s never kept in them for long once his Master arrives - but then he'll see the satisfied look in the eyes of his tormentor as he's stripped of the thin trousers, and remembers that that's why. Novak likes seeing the moment he's made more vulnerable, he likes denying Sam that little piece of humanity each and every time.

He washes quickly, crouched on the ground, gentle around the worst of the bruises and scrapes. He gulps down a few mouthfuls too, while his back is turned to his Master. The water is cold and filled with dead leaves, stream water, nothing so good for him as clean water from the well. Nothing luxurious makes its way to him here from the main house.

He's aware of Novak stepping outside ever so briefly to dispose of the waste in the chamber pot but he doesn't falter in his task, doesn't let thoughts of unlocked door and unchained legs fill his head, at least not too much.  
When he's done he turns on his knees and bows his head.

“I suppose you'll want to eat." there's a sigh and Sam looks up to see him waiting, leg jiggling, in his seat on the bed.

“Come here, I'd like to feed you myself today.”

Sam swallows his fear and rising bile and hurries across to him, curling over his knees in front of the man.

A small container pops open, a metal box, no bowl or plate in sight - so no gruel or slop today Sam wonders. His Master holds a piece of bread in his hand, hovering near Sam's lips. He leans forward and hungrily takes it into his mouth.

There aren't many pieces, but it's sweet and soft. Food like this is new and Sam hesitates, worries clouding his thoughts over what it could mean. When it's done, there's a hand around his neck quick like a snake and Sam gasps.

“You didn't thank me for your cleanliness.” the hand squeezes. Sam knows better than to touch or scrabble at the hand cutting off his life, clawing at his own legs instead.

“So ungrateful, filthy whore.” Sam whines, tiny and high. How did he forget? It's such a simple thing how did he miss it? “I'll have to punish you, how you must love the pain to force my hand like this.” there's laughter there Sam thinks as the blood and air are choked right out of him, laughter and mockery and oily contempt.

When the hand releases he gulps air, not daring to move, “Thank you for the bread Master,” he chokes back tears but it has to be said.

“See you can learn,” Sam catches sight of him out of the corner of his eye “maybe you just need a firmer hand, hmmm?”

Sam is still gaping mouthed and rasping when the metal bit is forced between his teeth. He bites down on it, humiliated, as the strap pulls painfully tight at the back of his head, catching on his hair as it buckles closed.

“Maybe you shouldn't speak at all, if you can't remember your manners."

Sam nods glumly. A day with the gag forcing his lips wide, then, a day with drool and burning embarrassment as he can do nothing to stop it. There'll be more to the punishment he's sure of that too, but his heart slows a little as he see the day taking shape before him.

* * *

 

Sam had grown eager to see Jimmy at each days end. It had started haltingly, both men unsure, with a such different social standing making a gulf between them. But they'd learned to navigate it, to even mock the way they were supposed to be different as they realised they were more alike at every conversation.

One day, walking under the trees as early summer light filtered down to them, Jimmy had gently slipped his hand into Sam's. Sam had stopped short, staring at the place their fingers entwined. Jimmy had squeezed and Sam remembered to breathe again.

And then they were laughing, and swinging their joined hands in an arc.

It had been such a simple thing, but it was the start of everything. Touching led to kissing, and kissing led to more touching, and before the month of May was done Sam found himself led by the hand into the grand rooms of Jimmy’s house. Led by desire into the rich life that Jimmy lived.

There were so many bedrooms to choose from, or so it seemed to Sam, but Jimmy led him straight to the end of the corridor to his own bed and they laid together, quietly at first and then eagerly.

Most days Jimmy insisted they had the house to themselves, the small staff busy or already gone for the day and not to worry. Other days he shushed Sam and told him the housekeeper was still around, and they covered each other's mouths as they came to keep the screams of pleasure a secret.

Not long after their first coupling one of Jimmy’s dogs took sick, she was old, but a fighter and Sam watched Jimmy sit up with her all night - eyes shiny with unshed tears and a grim set to his jaw. She made it through, recovering slow but steady, and Sam saw how much Jimmy cared, the relief in his eyes that she would be fine.

He listened to each tale Jimmy told about the people he hired, and Sam realised that not only did he know them by name, he knew about their lives, their families and struggles. He cared .He lived and breathed a simple life, not in amount of wealth or ease, but in how he saw the world and the people in it - everything mattered to him, no worry too small and Sam opened up to him too. His worries about not finding work, about feeling alone, now his parents were gone. His hopes and dreams for the future, and Jimmy shared too, an open book it seemed.

They seemed to cover every thought and aspect of their lives in conversation until Sam felt Jimmy knew him better than anyone.

Despite their unusual situation, the uncertainty of their relationship because of their statuses in life, Sam had never felt safer - never more sure of his feelings.

* * *

 

Once the gag is in place Sam is manhandled sideways over his bed, ass up and legs spread, and his Master is soon buried deep in him. Some prep, a little oil, not enough but not so little that it will leave Sam too torn up.

He resists the urge to claw away, trying to remember that there’s nowhere to go anyway and that even if at one time his strength could out match Jimmy, it can’t anymore.

It hurts, somewhere in his heart as well his inside him, and he cries through it. When Novak is finally done, cock softening and pulling out, Sam takes a shuddery breath and tries to hide his face. He isn’t allowed, a rough tugging on the strap of the gag and his hair pulls his face around to meet his Master.

Sam stares wide eyed and wonder struck at the blue up close, before remembering he’s not supposed to look. Another tear leaks out and Novak croons over it, “Love it when you cry for me."

He pulls Sam into the centre of the room, knees and feet scrabbling in the dirt as he drags Sam into position.

He orders Sam’s hands out, palm up. Trembling, hating how he complies out of fear of retribution if he doesn’t, Sam holds his broad, long fingered hands up for inspection.

Except, it’s not inspection. There’s a cane in Master’s hands and he brings it down with a stinging blow on Sam’s palms.

Sam wails, arms dropping, then drags in a breath and holds them up again.

“When I give you something,” he hears the words over the pounding in his head and the throbbing in his hands, “you will be thankful.”

Novak throws all the strength of his arm into the blows, over and over.

“You will be grateful."

Slap after slap until all his hands are red with welts and his breath is wracked with sobs.

“You don’t deserve anything, boy, you are nothing.” two final whacks and his wrists are roughly grabbed and crushed together while his Master brings him closer.

Sam fights to hold still, channeling all his will, his hate, into freezing his muscles to stone.

“You are just a thing to be used, to be discarded, be glad I treat you as well as I do.”

Sam wants to laugh, even from beneath the pain he feels it trying to bubble out, because he refuses to believe the words but they’ve started to seep into his mind and settle there anyway. Instead, he nods, and leans into the touch of the man who hurts him like there’s nothing more he wants in the world than to be at his feet.

There’s power in the deception, in playing the part of the broken young man, in biding his time. But there’s danger there too because Sam worries he’s not acting anymore, that’s he’s more lost than he cares to admit. The fear is always real, and it eats into his soul more every day, that he’ll die here or maybe worse still, that he’ll live here - never leaving never escaping, only growing weaker until there’s nothing left of him at all and he really will be a just body, pliant and open and gone.

* * *

 

The change in their arrangement had been subtle but fell all at once too, like a rug pulled from under Sam's feet.

He no longer walked the perimeter of the grounds, he walked straight to the door and Jimmy would be there waiting, beckoning him in. Until the day that he arrived at the door, about to knock, and Jimmy appeared around the corner of the house and beckoned him away.

“My family have arrived to stay, quickly come this way,” he spoke low into Sam's ear when Sam caught up with him.

Sam understood, and was strangely warmed at the idea that he wasn’t being immediately turned away. He followed Jimmy’s quick steps, down through the fields and out to the borders of the lands he owned, where nestled by a back wall there was a low stone hut. It had probably been a pig sty at some point he thought, it had stone walls, with a sloping wooden roof - higher at the back and almost curving down to the front - and wooden door that was barely tall enough for a man to walk through.

The space inside was cluttered but thankfully no longer smelled of pig muck. There were old broken bits of furniture and tools, even a low bed stood upright against one wall.

“No one comes down here,” Jimmy said, turning to face Sam in the empty bit of floor space that was left, “don’t know that anyone even remembers it’s here. We shouldn’t get caught,” he said with a half smile. “Is it okay, just for now?”

Sam looked carefully around the space, it wasn’t anything like they were used to, and he felt a bit like a shameful secret hidden away but it was better than not seeing Jimmy at all.

He nodded. “We’ll make it work." and then they were kissing, and fumbling past clothes, and if Jimmy was a little rough with him - nails scraping and teeth nipping - Sam put it down to his relief and eagerness.

He had no idea what was changing under the very hands that held him.

* * *

 

From somewhere far away behind his own eyes Sam watches as Novak bends him over again, shoving the smoothly varnished wooden bulb into his ass with force. Sam grunts through the metal in his jaw, and flinches as his ass is slapped. But he’s not really here, he’s not really in his own body, only watching - a passenger. Pain and despair have taken him far away and he doesn’t try to claw back just yet.

Next come his trousers, drawstring pulled tight, and then the kneeling by the wall. His throbbing hands end up chained behind him, safely tucked away where he can’t get them into trouble and he’s strangely glad of it. No temptation to undo the bit gag, or take out the intrusion in his ass if he can’t get at them anyway.

The chains his Master uses for his hands are tight, and have a thick metal bar running stiffly between the cuffs making it harder to move. His hands clench, testing the weight, and from his misty view of the proceedings he chides his silly thoughts. There’s no getting out of them.

There’s no getting out.

His head is tipped back and a water flask splashes cold liquid onto his face.

“Drink up, don’t waste it.”

His lungs splutter, caught off guard, but not much makes it past his lips - the gag keeps it out. But he slurps up what he can anyway. And then an old heavy chain is wrapped securely around his neck, padlocked into place, and then pulled high and taut and locked through a metal stake in the wall.

“I’ll be back tonight, try not to miss me." it’s a joke, and not a good one, and the cuff around his head that accompanies it jars him out of his reverie. Suddenly his breathing comes short and shallow, pain eats at his body and he hears the rattling slam of the door in it’s hole as he’s left alone.

So alone.

The burning heat of summer is at least over, the wooden roof of the hut let in the heat and trapped it, turning the air to sandpaper in his throat and pressing hotly on his head. It’s more comfortable now as the day warms up but nothing else is better.

Everything aches and there’s no relief to be found. Sam shifts small inches periodically, rests certain muscles while straining others.

The day spreads long, and his pains only grow and there isn’t water to waste for tears but they happen anyway. He’s exhausted, floppy limbed and cold again, halfway gone to unconsciousness, when his Master returns. He uses him, and feeds him, and ties him back to his bed for the night.

Another day gone, another day lost.

Sam shoves his fist as far as he can into his unobstructed mouth and screams until the blackness of sleep carries him away.

* * *

 

The first week passed almost as it had before, they would meet in the hut not the house, but they still made love. Jimmy talked less so Sam filled in the silence with more of his own talk. He had looked tired, Sam thought, a tightness around his eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. So Sam spent time soothing him with his body and his tongue, and tried to make him relax.

Always before they had taken turns in who took which pleasure, but for that whole week Jimmy took the lead and chased his need in Sam without discussion. Sam let him, and was never far behind in his own reach for climax, and hoped Jimmy didn't think worse of him for it.

On the sixth day Jimmy produced a length of rope, “Can I?” he gestured to Sam.

Sam frowned, “I don’t… what for?”

“Just to add a little spice, make you helpless, and mine."

“I’m already yours,” Sam said hesitantly.

“Then you won’t mind,” Jimmy replied as he turned him around and loosely bound his hands behind his back. Sam tested the rope, not so tight he couldn’t get out of it given some time, but snug and rough on his skin. He had reservations but Jimmy was sweet, and made it all balance on the edge of pleasure and pain until Sam was thrashing at the push and pull of the cock in his ass and the hand coaxing him to neediness, stringing him out.

As he came down from the wild high of it there was a smug smile on Jimmy’s face and he leaned in and bit at Sam’s mouth, teeth gnashing over his lips and tongue leaving little sore spots behind.

“I knew you’d like it,” he whispered.

After that it changed.

The furniture had been cleaned out bit by bit, Sam had helped with the heavier items and the tools had been cleared away for the most part, only a small table laden with smaller… things, was tucked neatly against one wall. That and the tiny bed were all that remained.

The day after his encounter with the rope Sam was shocked when Jimmy apprehended him in the morning, clutching his wrist and dragging him into the sparse room.

“Quickly, before you have to go.” and he carelessly shoved home, Sam up against the wall and still limp as a fish. Nothing felt good, or right, or pleasurable but Jimmy didn’t care. He came with a grunt, clawing at Sam’s skin and Sam quickly pulled away after and made his excuses to leave.

That night he wasn’t sure whether to return, but Jimmy waylaid him at the crossroads and insisted they walk together. Sam didn’t know how to refuse, how to say that he was hurt and unsure by the new developments so he went and he allowed Jimmy entrance and claim on him. His own cock was coaxed to hardness and he spilled easily over bed, and he felt a little sick with it.

“You know,” Jimmy said as Sam collected his clothes to leave, “I could pay you your daily wages, and you wouldn’t have to work at all. You could stay here all day, with me.”

“I’m not a whore, and I don’t want your money for this,” Sam said hotly, angry and confused.

“Suit yourself, just thought you might want to consider it, you are so good for me in bed. Nice and tight, just how I like it, plenty of fight in you too."

Sam scowled and left. Everything felt uneasy, wrong, warnings in his gut that made him want to flee. Not that he had anywhere to go except the small room he rented and then to town to find work.

He didn’t see Jimmy for two days, until he found him sternly watching for him one mid afternoon and a crook of the finger was all it took for Sam’s stomach to lurch. He was surrounded by people and he daren’t snub a lord in front of all those watchful eyes so he followed.

He really shouldn’t have followed.

* * *

 

Though every touch from his Master is rough, biting cruel and bruising, the next days follow without notable mistakes - not easy, never easy, but he receives no excess punishments. No need for the gag or extra restrictions, no harsh positioning that stresses his joints. The only hurts Sam bears are the ones Novak deals out to sate his own pleasure; one whipping so he can see Sam twist from the rafters against the blows, one vice tightened around his balls turn by turn so that his Master can watch him squirm in the dirt for a couple of hours while his bound hands scrabble uselessly at his back.

Everything else is static, cold in the mornings and through the nights, warming to thicker air during the long hours of the day. With no more slip ups Sam isn’t as tightly restrained, and boredom overtakes pain.

He counts the bricks, he sings songs in his head, he pictures meadows and wide skies and swooping birds. He cries. He waits.

His food rations change, the count of his ribs is showing and his Master says with reluctance that perhaps he should feed Sam more. Sam doesn’t comment but his thanks is real enough when the food appears.

He allows himself to steal five glances at his Master's face, and only one is noticed and earns him a slap. Sam can’t see that anything there has changed, still as hard as stone and unknowable as the stars.

He misses when it was soft and open, quick to laugh and joke. When there was no iron will and sneering disdain, when he wasn’t called boy or whore, or thing, when the lips uttered his name not his usefulness.

He misses who he was too, he misses everything stolen from him. He still can’t see a way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Two on its way soon, I've almost finished writing and editing it, so I hope to have it up in a few days!
> 
> Edit to say: this got longer than anticipated, so chapter two will be up soon - chapter three may take a little while after that >.<


	2. Chapter 2

Jimmy had produced the chains that first afternoon, not even speaking, just offering them to Sam with a raised eyebrow and the confidence of a man raised to get what he wanted out of life.

Sam let them be fastened around his wrists with fear rushing through his veins. He’d never seen that look on Jimmy’s face before, not such wrath, not such indifference.

Nothing about the evening was nice, Jimmy turned him over the bed and beat his ass until Sam cried out for him to stop, and then he forced himself into Sam dry and quick while a scream tore out of Sam’s throat.

He dragged more lengths of chain out of the corners of the room and set about making a rigging from the rafters, and driving metal loops and hooks into the walls and one into the floor while Sam laid face down on the bed in shock.

He was bleeding, he could feel it rolling down his legs.

“Why,” he croaked, “why are you hurting me?”

“Because I can, because you made it so easy, because I like how you look and how you scream and I want to be the cause of all of it every day,” there was contempt there, but excitement too and Sam noticed Jimmy’s cock rising to attention, swelling as he talked about hurting Sam.

Sam cringed, and then spat at him.

Jimmy beat him again, bashing his face and ribs, and then made a rope noose and left Sam standing in the middle of the stone prison overnight.

Sam could never forgive himself for walking into the hut that day, for turning around and letting his wrists be restrained without resistance, for not fighting back harder, for not getting out of it. For being so naive.

As much hatred as he nurtured for Novak, he kept just as much acidic scorn for himself.

It was a fuel with no fire to burn it, energy with nowhere to go. He could do nothing, and the very worst things he could imagine happened to him, making him more helpless with every passing day.

* * *

 

  
“Boy, what do you like best about being here with me?” Novak asks from above him, still balls deep in Sam's ass and pulling harshly on his hair to force his head back.

Sam squirms as he tries to think how to answer. There isn't anything good here, is there?

“Answer me, before I lose patience,”

“The, the food, and the bed,”

“Boring answer, pick again,”

“I… I like how you know me,” it's a lie, buts it's a lie Sam can easily pretend is true.

“Explain?”

Sam restlessly pulls at the ropes keeping his hands stretched over his head.

“You know what I can take, and… and you know how to make me feel pleasure, sir.”

A hand snakes under his waist to curl around his cock.

“You like that I own every bit of you,”

Sam hesitates, there's no good way to answer that and remain pain free and keep his dignity at the same time. Novak doesn't seem to want a reply though, as he just keeps talking.

“See, my favourite days are the days I leave you all begging and hurting, the days I can spend picturing you wiggling around like a fish on a line but completely helplessly stuck in place - just waiting and hoping that I'll be back soon to relieve you,”

Sam holds back a sob and clenches, his whole body locking up.

Novak groans over him, “Gods you are tight today,” he rolls off and out of Sam and tidies his clothes.

“Please,” Sam says.

Nails dig hard into his forearms, “Did I ask you to speak?”

Sam shakes his head.

“You are delightfully stubborn you know, I thought I might've beaten it all out of you by now but you keep surprising me. Anyway, as I was saying” he withdraws his fingertips and begins to loosen the knots holding Sam down.

“I have a long, tedious day today, and I want you just as frustrated as I am only hurting and desperate too so that I have a good mental picture to sustain me.”

Sam refuses to whimper but it's a close thing, his chest is stuck, there's no air, and he doesn't want any of what his Master describes.

He's already been fed and fucked so there's nothing else left to do to delay it.

Eyes filled with hatred, he turns on Novak, a snarl makes its way to his features and he growls “No,”

And Novak just laughs, “I'm glad you make me hurt you,” and in seconds thumbs dig into his eyes sockets and Sam yells, trying to pull away. His feet are still bound though and he can't get far.

“Never look at me like that again,” is growled directly into his ear and he flinches.

In a flurry of movement that Sam can barely track through his watering, burning eyes he is untied and hauled to the middle of the room.

His legs are bound to a stick, knees forced apart, and then bent under him as Novak tucks him low to the ground. And then the heavy chain wraps twice around his throat and is locked into the iron bolt that resides in the middle of the floor, making him lean down and forward, nose in the dust. His hands are caught up, drawn behind him into the stiff cuffs with the bar and it throws him off balance.

Without his hands to brace himself, the only way to take the strain off his legs is to rest his face on the ground, but he tries, he yanks with all his strength to find some give in the chain tethering him face first in the dirt.

He thrashes and his Master tuts, pressing his toe boot hard on a kidney through the flesh of his back until Sam flops still in pain. His ass is sticking up, back curved and neck at an angle, his toes curl at the exposure even though Novak is the only one to see it.

“Please don't, don't leave me like this,” he wants to plead more but a fist thumps onto the back his head. With his face pressed to the ground there's nothing he can look at but the brown-red floor. But he hears the stomping of boots and the mutterings of the madman around him.

“Did I ask for your opinion? Do you think I crave your input?” Something heavy strikes the edge of his midriff, blinding pain and forcing breath out of his airways. The blows come hard and fast, and seemingly ceaseless.

Sam can't curl or turn away and only slumps lower and angled sideways under the blows. Stupid, so stupid, how does he always make it worse.

Finally the beating stops and as a hand grips his chin and shoves hard metal between his teeth - he thinks of apologising but there isn't space with the gag making a grimace out of his lips.

“Don't ever tell me what I can and can't do.” comes the snarl near his ear. “Don't ever presume that you are more informed than I am, don't ever try to cajole me with pleases and whimpers. Do you think I don't know what I do to you?”

Sam shakes his head, desperate.

“I _like_ how I hurt you, I do it on purpose, you are my toy - my slut to torment, my dirty little secret and I get off on it. Your pain brings me pleasure, that’s the only reason you’re here. Stop trying to pretend that isn't true, or that there's some way out for you.”

Sam is pulled quickly back to balance properly on his knees, shaking, trembling.

He hates, Lord how he hates this man. And mercy, please, because the fear is starting to win.

There's a tug at his arms, and they lift up and away from his back until his shoulders are stretched to their limit. He gurgles and groans. Twisting his head he catches sight of the rope drawing his arms towards the ceiling. It’s the last piece of the puzzle to make him immobile, utterly stuck, a butterfly pinned to a board - every fluttering twist only serves to hurt him more.

He sobs. Scrunches his eyes shut at the injustice and strain. Pants hard and bites the metal like a lifeline.

He can feel Novak’s eyes watching him, can sense the heavy gaze as though his lust crackles through the air and slithers around Sam's body like a tendril.

Novak prods and pokes at him, makes him jerk and wobble in his chains; makes him test every limit of movement he's been denied. There's no give in the restraints and jolt as Sam might he is held exactly in the position his Master wants.

“Fuck, you look so good like that,” Novak says with reverence. And Sam can’t imagine it’s true, but what does he know? What can he understand in the face of this man's sadistic ideals?

Long minutes pass as Sam tries to slow his heartbeat and breathing as drool dribbles out of his down-facing mouth. It's humiliating, all of it.

“Gonna have to fuck you like this tonight, gonna be hard all day thinking about.”

Sam swallows thickly seeing the long hours laid out ahead of him. An urgent moan tears from him and he tries to turn to look for his Master, desperate.

“I know, I know, you'll beg me for it by then won't you, just to be allowed down. You never disappoint,” Novak finishes with a laugh.

Sam sinks into his despair and his hurt, lets it swallow him whole. He half hopes to never come back out of the black sticky tar of desperation. Maybe if he stops hoping for reprieve, for escape, maybe if accepts his fate it will hurt less.

Novak presses, relentless, until he can fuck three fingers in and out of Sam's ass without resistance making him whine, making it sore and puffy while he rocks painfully in the chains. He slaps Sam's balls a few times too and drags fingernails down the sensitive flesh of his cock until Sam is crying.

“You're so easy to manipulate, I can play you like a fiddle. There's nothing about this body that I don't know but I could happily stay and play with you all day.” Sam wishes he were better at slipping away, at holding out, but Novak thinks of everything and there's no part of Sam that hasn't been thoroughly explored by his hands. These months together have left him naked in every way.

He grunts, choking, as his head is wrenched back and through blurry eyes he can see his Master surveying him.  
“Don't have too much fun without me,” comes the instruction and there's one last slap across his face before his Master leaves.

And then, then, it's quiet and empty. Still.

He is left for the day.

 

 

And he is found that day.

* * *

 

The first long weeks passed in a blur of blood and fights. He pushed back against Novak at every turn, but already held fast in chains he had little room or leverage, always at a disadvantage.

Novak brought the gag in after a couple of days, gleeful in the way it slid into Sam's mouth and twisted his lips back into a cruel parody of a smile. He took inspiration from other restraints used on animals and strapped Sam down and chained him upright in myriad hurtful ways. Spreading his legs wide so he had access, or leaving Sam stretched from the ceiling, his body arching away from sharp tools that were slashed into his skin or the lashes of the whip.

His hands slowly went numb and limp, weaker without use; his head swam with the lack of food. Until one day he found all his limbs free and Novak taunting him about how he couldn't fight and win his escape now if he tried.

And he was right.

Too weak by then, too broken in body. His spirit clung on but Novak set about destroying that too.

First came the punishments for every tiny infraction. Always harsh and painful, often long, arduous.

Then the insistence that he called Jimmy _Sir_ or _Master_ , and the blows to his face every time he lifted his gaze.

Sam was always a quick learner but he stubbornly held out on all of it. Held until the torture was too great and he had to relent. His mind still refused to obey, calling his prison warden by name in the quiet spaces of his thoughts, picturing a day when he could choke the air out of his lungs.

“Jimmy,” he tried one last time, when a month had passed, urgent with the bleak outlook before him and hungering for a morsel of kindness. “Jimmy, let me go, why won't you stop?”

The laugh that earned him was cruel and long, followed by a sneer and hands tipping his face up to be examined.

“You still think, after all this time, you still assume I'm him?” Novak asked, tracking Sam's reaction.

Sam blinked in confusion not understanding, not following the threads of words, not knowing where to look that wasn't into his Master’s eye.

“You still think I'm Jimmy? After all these weeks?”

Sam shook his head, as a weak sound escaped from his throat.

“My name is Castiel, twin brother of that weed of a man you fell for,”

Sam drowned then.

His mind rebelled, churning, until he couldn't breathe. He didn't understand, how? When?

“Since the first day we came here,” Novak answered, and Sam realised he'd questioned aloud. “Since I saw you coming for him and envied him for your long legs and tight little ass. I decided to make you mine instead. Guess I won.”

Sam didn't know whether to believe him. His mind spun and fell through possibilities and he spent weeks tearing himself to pieces wondering what was truth and what was lie.

Jimmy had mentioned a brother, but not a twin. Jimmy had seemed different that first day at the hut. But then nothing awful had happened for a week.

This man was sadistic and cruel, Jimmy had been easy to laugh and gentle.

But he'd never said it before, never held it over Sam's head until now. So what if it was all a ruse to mess with his mind. What if it was a way to crush him further by offering hope that didn't exist?

It didn't matter, he decided in the end, who was who, or if it were real. He was a kept as a slave, a plaything now, worth little more to his Master than the dirt under his feet. He would just call him Novak, and know him by the evil torments that were inflicted on his body.

The past didn't mean anything. And Sam only hoped to hold on so that he had life still in his lungs, and locked his soul away in the recesses of his mind, hoping to keep it safe for the future.

* * *

 

Sam tries to find a rhythm in the way his body hurts, in the way his chest constricts in tightness as cramps come and go. He wonders how his existence has come to this, and then chases the thoughts away because it's too painful to mull over.

He is shaking, skin soaking with streaks of sweat from the strain, breath harsh in the cool autumn air prickling at his body.

There's no relief, he can't escape into the rolling ocean of his mind - too tired, too sore, all too intimate.

So he's aware and he hears the rattle of the door. His eyes fly open, it's still light, still day and he whines. If Master has come back early he doubts it's for any good reason.

The door bangs, one long thud and Sam shouts in surprise, the sound bouncing in his skull.

“Hello, is someone in there?” comes the low voice.

And that's an evil twist, of course he's here, Novak left him - he knows. Sam shakes his head, resolving to be quiet. Footsteps retreat and Sam breathes out only to clench in fear almost half an hour later as metal thunks and banging reach his ears again.

He shudders, wondering what it means, what Novak is bringing in to torment him with.

The door swings open, slamming the wall sudden and loud and Sam flinches. There's a gasp, feet scrabbling backwards and then inching forward.

“Sam?”

Sam sobs. His name, his Master hasn't used his name in months. He hates it, it's cruel to make it sound so innocent in his voice.

“Sam, what -” there's a pained sound above him, a guttural sob from someone else, and then his arms are gently lowered to his back. Sam goes still as stone, he feels like there's some trick or test here and he doesn't know how to navigate it. His legs are eased out from under him and his ankles are unwrapped from the stick and the harsh way they've been forced apart.

“I don't - I don't have the keys for the chains,” hands fumble at the straps of his gag and it's eased from his mouth.

“Who did this?” Sam doesn't answer, shaking his head tight lipped. He doesn't want more pain for answering wrong.

“Sam please, talk to me, tell me how to help you. Who did this to you?”

Sam cries and the tears fall fast to the floor mixing with the spit that he dribbled, making a pool.

“Come now, I'm here, why won't you talk to me?” And that's easy to answer, maybe Novak just wants confirmation that he knows the rules.

“Not allowed, not supposed to, unless… unless I'm given permission.”

“Who says?”

“You,” Sam bites back.

“Sam,” hands run over his body, checking out the damage and Sam goes statue still and lets it happen, head hanging low in shame. “You're so badly hurt,” and there's pain in that voice.

Blue eyes appear in his line of sight, and Sam flicks his eyes down, “Hey, please look at me,” and that's a direct order spoken right next to his ear so Sam finds his eyes lift.  
He gasps when he sees the face before him, laid in the dirt next to his own. The face is gentle, kind lines crinkling near the corners of the eyes, mouth set in a shaky smile not a hard line of displeasure.

“There you go, just me, Sam I'm so sorry - I don't know what's happened, but please _please_ tell me who did this so I can get you out of the chains.”

Sam reels. It can't be. Can it? Realisation crashes around him making his head throb and he hopes with all his heart that it isn't a lie, that it won't be snatched from him. Was it all true, was Castiel actually a reality and not a torment made up to hurt him? Is Jimmy really not the one who has been torturing him all this time?

He feels wracked with guilt, and a raw scraping thing breaks open somewhere in his chest, horror and relief rising together. He's sobbing and soft hands cup his face.

“I'm here, please let me help you,”

Sam calms slowly, and raises his chin as far as he can, but he can't look Novak in the eye when he says it.

“Your brother,”

There's a strangled noise and he can't bear to hear what comes next in case it's the wrong thing.

“Castiel? Cas did this to you?”

Sam nods. His chain collar clanks and he burns with humiliation. There's never an end to how deep it runs, how much of him it steals away.

“Saints, that bastard, I can't understand,” there's anger now and Sam whimpers and hates himself for it. He expects the gag again, almost opens his mouth for it.

“I'll fetch help, I'll get you out of these,” a brush of fingertips to his face and then gone, nothing. Footsteps shuffle and Sam can't look up to see him leave but he makes a strangled noise.

If this is really Jimmy, if Castiel really isn't here, he doesn't want to be alone in case the wrong person comes back first.

“What is it?” worried sounding and back in his space, hands clutching.

“Don't leave me,” he whispers.

“I have to -” Novak falters “You need releasing, I,”

“Don't leave me alone, what if he comes back?”

Arms wrap around him, careful but firm and Novak’s face presses to his head with a broken sob.

“Alright, alright, I'll stay here,”

 

 

Sam is breathing fast and high, and he knows he should calm down but it’s all too much. Novak is sitting close with a hand on his skin, clammy and prickly and Sam wants to shrug it off but he doesn’t dare.

The door is still open, and it’s never open, there’s sunlight streaming in that Sam can see out of his peripheral and a cool breeze blows through. He makes a choked noise and hunches lower to the ground. It’s so far away from what he’s known and he clutches his hands in empty air, grasping, looking for surety that he can’t find.

He thinks Jimmy might be talking to him, he feels fingers over and under his own, and then he’s squeezing a hand and he jolts away, because he knows he’s not supposed to touch.

“Sam, Sam!” he sobs at his name again and then stills, shushes, turning quiet and waiting. He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for.

“I’m not going to let him hurt you, not anymore not ever again. Do you hear me? It’s over, whatever he did he's done the last of it,” he closes his eyes and tries to believe, he’s not quite sure he makes it there.

He becomes aware of hands fiddling with the chain wrapped around his neck and gasps.

“I’m going to try and get this off, I have, well I don’t think you’ll want to see it, but I have something that cut through the chain on the door and I think… I’m going to try and get it to cut you free,”

Sam whimpers, but nods, whatever happens he’s not in control anyway and what's one more sharp object teasingly close to his delicate skin? It takes a long time, small noises of metal on metal as something chips slowly through the thick chain link collar. Novak tells him over and over that he’s doing great, and just to stay still, and Sam can obey so he barely even breaths.

With a snick that burns into his memory probably forever, the chain drops loose, unspooling with a clatter to floor. Sam watches it lie there, waits for the next command.

Hands, strong and sure, ease him out of the position he’s been kneeling in for hours and he grunts as cramps begin in his legs and back. He’s pulled close to a chest, rocking back and forth and he can’t breathe.

Novak eases back and looks at him and Sam looks resolutely down at not his face. “Won’t you look at me?”

Sam shakes his head, the arms release and he takes the opportunity to scramble backwards until he collides with the wall. If it’s a lie, a trick, he’ll take the punishment for trying to get away. But if it’s real and he’s actually going to be free, he’s allowed to do whatever he wants and he presses up against the wall, hands trapped behind him, like the solid weight can save him from how lost he feels.

They sit in silence for a long time once Novak realises he can’t convince Sam to walk out the door. Sam doesn’t know why he can’t, except for the voice in his head that tells him he isn’t allowed, that he’ll be hurt if he tries to make a break for it. He hates that voice, but he listens to it anyway.

With a sudden start there is commotion outside the door and one of Jimmy’s dogs comes snuffling into the hut, wiggling excitedly and nudging up to his master's hand. There’s a voice too and Sam hunkers lower upon hearing it, he doesn’t know who it is.

“Good boy, Bal, good boy,” Novak ruffles his fur, and Sam looks up furtively to see the dog checking out the room.

Novak stands at the door and he’s talking to someone, “We came looking for you when you didn’t return this morning, is everything alright Sir?”

Sam blocks it out, he doesn’t want to hear what they say about him. Balthazar is sniffing around, slowly padding closer, and when he finally recognises Sam he leaps into his lap licking and pawing, a little excited whine and a raspy tongue against his naked body.

Sam sobs, and curls against him, and the world comes back into focus. He can’t stroke Bal, his hands are still cuffed and the stark contrast of it, of something normal against the horror he has lived in shatter him apart.

“Fetch the Constable, and send for a doctor,” he hears Jimmy saying, and Sam takes himself away again.

He hears yelling later, and takes comfort in the solid weight of dog, sweet smelling fur and the panting noise of his breath.

And then he hears the cruel laugh that has leached into his mind all these months and rocks backwards, suddenly aware again.

“Well, I see my fun is finally over,”

“How could you! How dare you! What on god's green earth is wrong with you?”

“He’s just a rat, he’s not worth anything Jimmy, you’d know that if you really looked at him.”

They’re in the room with him Sam realises with a jolt, he looks up to see one of them with his hands fisted in the others shirt, Castiel and Jimmy, and he doesn’t know which is which. Both have expressions of disgust on their faces, and Sam guesses it’s all because of him.

“All I see is the horror you’ve inflicted, you’re a monster!”

All he sees? And yes, Sam supposes that all he’s become is a whimpering creature bound and flogged and skittish. Faced suddenly with the prospect of freedom he can see how far he’s fallen, that the ruse he has tried to keep up was not so much a ruse anymore. He really was beginning to break.

“He liked it!” Castiel snaps back, “Tell them how you liked it, how you let me clap you in irons without protest, how you respond to everything I’ve done to you,”

“Don’t talk to him, don’t you dare even look at him,”

Sam drops his head until he can press it into the fur of the dog now growling low in his ear. He doesn’t fear that growl, somewhere deep down he knows it’s not for him.

“How long?” Jimmy asks, “how long have you kept him here?”

Cas laughs, “Why don’t you ask him, see if he even knows,”

There’s a pause, a hesitation filling the room, and then a scuffle and Sam sees more feet and someone being dragged away.

There’s more talking, and a man Sam doesn’t know holds a chunky key to his eyeline and ask if he’ll turn and let the cuffs be undone. He does, and his numb hands don’t even register, they don’t matter.

They carry him out on a stretcher, and he listens for the doggie footfalls following along behind them. Jimmy talks to him, tells him its over but Sam doesn’t care, because he can see sky, sunset tinted clouds and a bird. He slips his eyes closed as a tear rolls down his cheek.

There’s a richly decorated room and a man with strange smelling balms and bottles and a nurse dressing him and Sam waivers, reaching for sleep. If this is a dream he hopes he never wakes, but it’s all too present and detailed, and the crushing weight of all of it - the imprisonment, the pain inflicted on him, the eyes of all these people who have seen him naked and beaten - it makes him want to wail. But he doesn’t. He makes it a foundation, a pain to build on, a place to start so he can get strong again.

He vows not to break any further.

But not breaking, not being broken, means he has to speak and he realises he hasn’t yet, barely more than a handful of words.

There’s a kindly looking gentleman, older and starting to go grey; Jimmy is asking Sam to please, _please_ answer some questions. Sam tries to focus, latching onto the conversation.

“How long were you in there, son?”

He gulps, throat so much less dry than he’s used to, he’s had water and warm broth he remembers vaguely.

“One hundred and nineteen days,” he croaks, not looking at anyone’s face.

“Oh Saints,” Jimmy clutches his stomach and runs from the room. And yes, Sam thinks, that seems about right.

Later there are voices outside the door and Sam listens:

“If you’re sure you want to press charges,”

“Of course I want to press charges! Why wouldn’t I?”

There is mumbling that Sam can’t pick out, and Jimmy’s tired voice agreeing to something.

“...Should be enough to convict him, plenty of evidence and your footmen heard him admit to it too, we’ll keep him locked up until…”

Sam curls up and finds another of Jimmy’s dogs, Sofia, a comforting weight beside him as he drifts off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a hungry goblin creature who hoards comments and feedback for rainy days, please feed me!
> 
> I know authors love it when they find out which sections or sentences got to their readers, but I'm switching it up and first I'm going to tell _you_ that when I wrote the line "Sam drowned then." that I had to take a second and look off into the middle distance because ooofff that one hurt.
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/oddsocksandstuff) if you want to.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovery and flashbacks

Sam spent more time alone during his months imprisoned than Novak found time to spend with him. He craved it soon enough, the space and the bare comforts of not being judged or sneered at or beaten. But every now and then his Master took a night to slip away and torment him for all the long hours. Or sometimes just to sleep beside him, and inside him, using Sam to keep his cock warm through the cold hours before dawn.

Sam would be bound and urged not to wake him or regret it. And his body would be held where he was needed, speared open on Novak’s cock. The warm weight at his back where his Master gripped him tight, holding him in place, was like a sickness he couldn't shake. It made him want to retch and he daren't even breathe deeply, sleep clutching at him even as he tried to delay it as long as he could. He vowed he never wanted to sleep alongside another again. Never wanted to wake, frantic, as hands held him down and fucked his limp body loose and rough.

Those long mornings when Novak was with him from the start were worse. Novak would use him and the mornings release would be his only meal, wiped from between his legs and pressed to his mouth. And then Novak would cheerfully say that he hadn't been greeted by Sam on his knees, and that couldn't go unpunished. Sam would pale, and if he protested his innocence he would only make it worse. There was no way not to lose against such logic.

There was no way to keep from blindly twisting and reaching for the pain free existence he was promised if only he could behave. It was imperative, survival, hope, and crushing disappointment. And it never stopped.

* * *

  
When Sam wakes with a body beside him it sends him into a panic, nausea clawing up his throat and he throws himself from the bed before anything more can go wrong. But it’s only the dog, and when Sam realises, he tentatively buries a hand in the soft warm fur, and feels the rising and falling of sleepy dog lungs beneath his fingers. This, this small but monumental thing, is a light in the storm and he fixates on it. The dogs love him, expect nothing from him but his mere presence, and that he can do.

Recovery is long, he’s listless and exhausted, and the nice faced doctor with the green eyes and pale brown-blonde hair visits him every day for the first week tending to his injuries, he asks gentle questions about what happened that mostly Sam declines to answer.

“You know,” Doctor Smith says one day, “talking about it might help, if not to me, you should find someone else.” Sam reaches for his hand after that, gripping with a fierceness he didn’t know he possessed any longer, his eyes fill with tears. He doesn’t want the doctor to stop coming, he doesn’t want to have to explain to anyone else so he nods and the doctors smiles and says, “Tomorrow then, we’ll try again, alright?”

Jimmy flits between coming to see him and staying far away. Sam cringes at the sound of his voice and though he is learning to look at other people, anytime he tries with Jimmy his breath catches in his throat and his stomach feels like it’s constricting.

He remembers things, snatches of threats, conversations, demands.

 _Today I’m going to make you ask for the pain. And every time you don’t I’m going to choke you on my cock until you pass out. When you wake up we’ll go again. Understand?_  
He recalls, the first time he hears Jimmy laugh.

 _Don’t ever try and run from me again,_ the words float to him when he sees the flames burning bright in the fireplaces or _I’ll burn your feet with hot coals, or break your ankles and leave you crippled._ He remembers how Novak had only caned the soles of his feet until they had bruised so badly he couldn’t walk or stand for a week, and how that started his existence of crawling on the floor. He remembers how grateful he’d been that that’s all Novak had done, and he feels ashamed and confused. What kind of person is grateful for pain, he asks himself.

His body heals quicker than his mind. Without even trying he gets stronger; better food, better sleep, no more inflicted bruises or lashes. He can barely stand to see himself naked though, and only washes at the insistence of the nurse and doctor who attend to him. He’s used to being filthy, he feels dirty all the time anyway, but he does it when they ask and he doesn’t complain.

Slowly those small human things make him feel a little more clear headed, and he begins to look forward to meals and to fresh clothes. He can’t think past a few hours ahead, and doesn’t bother trying to, but he doesn’t feel trapped moment to moment anymore either.

* * *

 

  
Sam had been sitting up against the wall for two days when his Master appeared in front of him for the first time with a straight razor and a cloth. Sam went tense, muscles locking, and eyes frozen on the objects. It had been a lesson to realise his body wasn't his own Novak had said two days before - his arms were both pulled out and away, useless and aching, hands out of reach while Novak had to do everything for him. Feed him, clean him, use him for pleasure, and now, with a razor - was it more pain or care?

Novak settled himself over Sam’s long legs, pinning them to the ground and trailed the sharp point of the blade over Sam’s exposed skin. He dragged it lightly over Sam’s hip bones, circled around his belly button and finally picked up his cock and teased around every inch of it. Sam’s skin prickled and he growled low, without even meaning to. The slap to his face knocked his head against the wall and everything spun.

His cock was being touched again and he willed himself to focus.

“See, you just need the right incentive, and I think you'll become much more accomodating, won't you?”

Sam nodded, swallowing, shaking. Angry, desperate, he’d barely had time to adjust to everything Novak expected of him, thirteen days had passed and he still hoped it was all going to be over soon.

“That fuzz on your face is becoming unacceptable. So here’s the deal, you hold still, tilt your head for me, and this razor won’t have to cut anything else today." Sam’s tired mind focused in on that word “today”, because there was always tomorrow, he’d been taunted enough and then brutalised anyway to know that already.

But then the point of the blade pressed, lightly but insistently, and then harsher and longer into the slit of his cock and he cut off a scream at the pain of it.

“Understand?”

“Yes,” Sam muttered, head lifting to look at Novak, who sighed.

“That’s one,” Sam frowned confused, “and that’s two,” Sam squinted at him, furious as he realised what strikes were being accounted for, why shouldn’t he look at this man and judge his actions?

“Three? Four? Do you want a more, a dozen?” he dropped his gaze and it earned him a pat on the cheek. “Good boy."

The terror of having Novak, who was clearly so comfortable with inflicting pain, drag a razor over his throat and cheeks, near his lips and over his jawline was something Sam learned to endure like everything else. As his Master took pains to point out, he couldn’t very well entrust a blade into the hand of such an obstinate thing who didn’t know his place. The gentle hands were almost taunting, _look what I can do if I choose to_. It was a new low, there was always a new low.

 

* * *

 

Jimmy doesn’t visit unless someone else is with him, and once Sam is up and mobile he learns which rooms to avoid. Mostly he stays where he is left, it’s not like he has things to get up and do, and he’s painfully aware that he’s a guest in a house where he doesn’t belong.

It’s strange seeing the frost on the windows and feeling the chill in the air and knowing he should still be shirtless and shackled, freezing out the winter in a windowless outhouse. It’s heart stopping to think that if not for the chance encounter of Jimmy chasing after his dog, who was chasing after a rabbit, he would never have seen the locks on the door and walked over to investigate. He was so far from the manor house, a little no name building half fallen to disrepair that no one bothered with it, and maybe wouldn’t have for years. Sam has visions of himself old and wrinkled, lying beaten and chained on the cot like he never got out and it haunts him.

Slowly the truth came out and though horrible and sickening, Sam is glad he knows how it was all able to happen - how he was kept a secret, locked away and no one knew he was supposed to missed.

The conversation happened with the doctor in the room, keeping track of Sam’s fear response, watching him for too much strain.

“I thought you’d stayed away, that you’d seen the carriage arrive and knew not to come to the house while… while he was here. And weeks later, when I went to look for you, all your belongings were gone,”

“Gone?”

“Everything cleared out, like you’d moved away,” Jimmy said voice cracking, “no one knew where to but everyone thought you’d gone looking for better work. I was the only one who knew you had something you might’ve stayed around for.”

Sam swallows thickly at that, eyes flicking panicked back and forth, understanding how carefully and completely Castiel had removed all trace of him.

“I wouldn’t have, not without telling anyone, I… my home, friends, and you.”

“I’m so sorry I should’ve made more investigation, kept looking, but Cas was here and making nuisance in my business and I told myself there would be time to sort it all out later. And I thought it was best that you were far away from my brother,” Jimmy says, shaking with rage or horror and Sam can’t tell which.

Sam nods. He can look at Jimmy now, though not in the eye, and it’s easier to carry on a conversation when he can track his movements and keep his distance.

“I’ll never forgive myself, and you shouldn’t either."

Sam falters, eyes pleading at the doctor because it’s too much, and that’s the end of the conversation for the day.

The revelation that Sam had gone with Castiel because he thought he was Jimmy came later. And when he described how he’d met in secret with Castiel for a week before he’d been overpowered and unable to leave, and how he spent most of his time believing Jimmy was his captor - that’s the day Sam thinks he sees a man break. The beautiful face cracking invisibly down the middle, splitting Jimmy into two beings: The man who cares for Sam and the man who abused him - as though Jimmy knows he is both these people to Sam, and that there’s no way to fix that.

Once Jimmy knows the final layer of why Sam is so afraid of him it does get easier, but the pain in them both can’t be swept away with only a few words. Jimmy is guilt stricken, blaming himself for almost all of it, and Sam is exhausted and numb - terrors in the night chase him between the sheets but his days are blank and fuzzy.

He knows he should leave, being here in Jimmy’s house isn’t right. But he doesn’t have anywhere else to go, he’s not well enough to work to earn money - he could starve through the rest of winter and no-one else that he knows would be able to take on the cost of an extra mouth to feed. He feels strange accepting anything from Jimmy, though Jimmy assures him not to worry, and that he wants to help, how Sam deserves his every need taken care of and he’s glad to do it.

Sam doesn’t think he’s worth anybody’s time or effort, he doesn’t feel like a complete person anymore and he knows he’s dull to be around. The dark, awful things that Castiel whispered into his head make him think he’s good for nothing, that not putting his body on show not being _useful_ or _pleasurable_ or _fuckable_ means he’s not doing what he should be, that he’s wrong.

He feels all kinds of wrong.

* * *

 

  
It didn't take long for Novak to try and instill silence into Sam. It started with lashes for every word spoken out of turn and though eventually effective, it didn't stop Sam from crying out in pain or screaming.

Novak made no small thing of telling Sam that he'd like to see him suffer quietly if he demanded it. Sam wasn’t sure how that was possible, with some of the things inflicted on him, but Novak seemed insistent that he would learn.

The black metal vice was produced that day, rigged to a harness of ropes until it hung between his legs, and then the sides were screwed closed until they began to press on Sam’s exposed balls. Sam was shaking, and it was half rage, half fear. Another smaller clamp was tied to his face and his Master demanded his tongue. When Sam relented and stuck his tongue out, after seven lashes to his back, it was pulled to press between the plates of the clamp and they tightened enough to keep it there.

Novak was gleeful, barely contained energy as he prowled around Sam’s bound form and tugged and checked the restraints. Sam trembled, muscles already strained, and then the real torment began. Novak did all he could think of to cause Sam pain or make him thrash in his bonds, every trick he loved, every weapon and stimulation. Sam held back his moans as long as he could, tried to clench his throat closed, but with his mouth parted to reveal his tongue even the smallest noises escaped.

And at each yell, at each whimper, Novak would pause and screw one of the vices tighter. There was no warning which it would be until his hands were there methodically winding the winches, and Sam breathed harshly, the pain a thick bright thing in his mind. By the end of the evening his groin ached fiercely, throbbing from prolonged pain, and his tongue was a swollen bruised thing that didn’t seem to fit back into his mouth properly.

But it worked. When he was told to be quiet, to keep everything to himself, he tried his best to do it - the memory burned bright enough that he would do almost anything to avoid repeating it.

Even as he lived it, Sam knew it would be a hard habit to break out of. He could see how much of himself he was hiding away just to survive.

* * *

 

Jimmy comes to him one day, a clear but still winter morning some time after Yuletide celebrations, and tells him the hut is being torn down. Sam blinks, wondering if he should say something to that.

“I thought maybe, would you like to see it? To know that it’s gone?”

Sam isn’t sure but he hasn’t been outside very much and he’d like to know how far he could walk now, so he lets the maid bring him layers of clothes and coats and wrap him up and he lets a footman support him as he follows Jimmy down through the fields.

It’s slow, Sam has to stop frequently to catch his breath and will his shaking muscles onward, but they make it there and Sam sees the half dozen men dismantling the stonework. The roof is already gone. He can see the rafters where they’re still attached to the walls and he goes stock still, willing back tears. So many days he spent suspended from them, toes braced on the ground while he tried not to suffocate. So many times chains kept him pressed up against the walls, so many months he spent in such a small space seeing no-one and nothing and it looks so fragile now he can’t understand how it happened.

Jimmy asks if he wants to go back to the house and Sam sits down hard and shakes his head. Someone brings blankets and he watches until the sun goes down and the outhouse is halfway destroyed, the stones piled in stacks on the ground. This place where he lost so much of himself is disappearing, and he wonders if he can find those things again once it’s gone.

There’s a swell of grim satisfaction in him at seeing the glow of sunset through the broken walls. He never goes back there again, but he leaves some of his despair behind him when he stumbles away.  


* * *

 

 

Sam finds Jimmy sprawled across one of the high backed settees late one day, a drink in his hand and more already consumed. He’s going to turn to leave, to let the man have whatever peace he can find at the bottom of a bottle, but he hears his name called and can’t refuse to answer.

He hovers nearby and Jimmy looks at him with such sadness that he feels profoundly uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy slurs, blurry drunk and lilting, “I’m so sorry Sam.”

Sam nods, he doesn’t know what to say. Eventually he replies quietly, “It wasn’t you, I know that.”

“But I should’ve looked, should’ve found you, it was so long."

Sam is very aware of exactly how long it was and doesn’t particularly need the reminder. He doesn’t stop Jimmy from talking though.

“I went to visit him today.”

Sam sucks in a breath, tension and worry clear in the lines of his shoulders.

“He didn’t look good, keeps getting into fights apparently, and then the guards have to beat him down.”

“That’s…”

“Only what he deserves really,” Jimmy continues, “God, I knew he was an ass, I knew he was awful and cruel but I thought he kept it to gambling houses and drunken fights, this, you-” he waves at Sam with tears in his eyes.

Sam goes to him, perching on a nearby table, drawn by something he can’t place. Compassion? Need? Obedience?

“How can you live with it? With me?” Jimmy asks thickly.

“I don’t know,” Sam admits, hanging his head.

Jimmy reaches for him and their hands touch briefly, it sends sparks up Sam’s arm, but he refuses to pull back.

“We’ll figure it out, I’m not as bad… it’s getting better isn’t it?” Sam asks, wanting consolation and reassurance more than he knew he needed. Jimmy nods, unsure, but it's there.

“I’m always here, if you need anything, if I can do anything, you know that?”

“Yes,” Sam agrees, and he does. But it doesn’t stop him walking away now. His hand tingles and he holds it close to his chest. He hasn’t been touched in so long, into the new year and spring soon to be around the corner again, he realises just how long it’s been. His body craves more, closer, connection, and he walks numbly around the halls wondering what to do with himself.

 

* * *

 

“We’re going to teach you that the best thing you can do, the _only_ thing you should do is whatever I ask of you - and that your biggest purpose in life is somewhere for me to stick my cock. I can stay here for hours, until you get this through your thick skull.”

Sam breathed harshly, kneeling stuck in place. He’d zoned out during the process of Novak preparing him and his mind spun wondering how he’d gone pliant enough to end up in this position. Here, with his arms tangled up behind him, wound around with rope at the small of his back. Here, kneeling with a leg either side of his Masters hips, gag firmly strapped to his face and a length of rope tugging at his throat.

Those things worried him less than the other torments Novak had devised, nothing was new but he hadn’t been made to endure them all at once before. There were small wooden rods tightly tied in place, two for each nipple with the buds squashed between them. And there were weights tied around his balls too. All of these things were connected by thin wires and twine, leading away to be held in Novak’s fist. There was more wire wrapped cruelly around the length of his cock, scraping in jolts as it was jostled.

Sam grunted, struggling to swallow, as he shifted a little and felt the nudge of his Masters cock against his loosely prepared ass hole. He rolled his neck testing the tautness of the rope cinched around it.

“Ah, ah,” Novak crowed, “don’t get ahead of yourself,” his foot twisted and the rope looped around it was pulled taut, yanking harshly and tightening the noose Sam’s neck making Sam go still. Novak had set it up perfectly, one twitch of his hand and Sam’s chest and groin would be on fire with more pain. Or one flex of his foot and Sam’s throat would be constricted until he was blind for air.

“Now, then, better set to work,” he grinned up at Sam from his reclined position below, “ride me.”

Sam refused at first, and paid for it in screaming pain and gasping breaths. So he sank an inch, clenching at the intrusion, earning a tug on his throat until he forced his muscles to relax.

And then he was encouraged back up, and he went gratefully, letting the cock slip almost free of his ass. Only to be reprimanded, and told to get back down.

He resisted, every time, for as long as he could, but the pain from his tortured balls and his put upon nipples, and the lack of oxygen made him give in until eventually he was fully seated on his Master’s cock. He could feel the throb of it inside him, the heat and stretch, and though it wasn’t new, it was sickening to think he’d chosen it instead of enduring the pain - even coerced into it, it felt like a slip in his resolve.

“You see, this is what you're here for, what you’re made for,” Novak said, cruel twist in place on his lips. “The only time you should _ever_ touch me, is when your ass takes hold of my cock and let’s it be buried deep in you where it belongs.”

He pulled harshly at all of the restraints holding Sam in place, all the strings forcing him to do his Master’s bidding. Sam screamed, voice cracking, tears falling. He couldn’t understand how it had come to this, how he’d fallen so low to be made into a puppet for someone else’s use.

But Novak wasn’t done yet. He made Sam ride him, grind and work his hips against him until he was stimulated enough to come. Sam was terribly sore, everything throbbing but he wasn’t allowed down even then, Novak kept him seated there for hours while he ached and the now soft cock was still sheathed inside him. He taunted Sam, telling him all the sick and awful things he thought of doing to him, until he was able to harden once more and felt like making Sam ride him all over again.

They did it three times over, within days of each other, and by the end his role in the situation was drilled into him enough that Sam didn’t want to touch his Master ever again anyway, even when his hands were free.

* * *

 

Sam frets and worries at the realisation he isn't getting any human contact because he doesn’t know what to do about it. And now that’s he’s noticed, it’s like an itch he doesn’t know how to scratch. He brushes shoulders with one of the footmen on his way past in the corridor and it makes his stomach flip.

He starts to get irritated, his moods swing from one extreme to the other and it’s annoying, he needs something but every fibre of his being is telling him it’s a dangerous thing to go after. He’s angry, and Jimmy becomes the target. Sam watches him sullenly from across rooms and through doorways and seethes because he’s so close and yet so unavailable to Sam. Jimmy was the start of all of this, and he seems to want to help but he won’t stay in the room with Sam for long or come close and Sam loathes him for it. If he’s going to make Sam see him every day, he could at least make it worth it, he could at least force Sam into close quarters the way Sam keeps expecting so that he’d get some intimate contact without having to _ask_ for it.

There comes a day when Sam decides he’s going to have to beg for it, it’s burning through all of his thoughts and he needs it. It takes him all day to work up to it, by the time he does it’s already evening, lanterns and fireplaces lit until everything is dark corners and low light. It’s probably for the best not to be able to see clearly, probably easier to get close without seeing the details of Jimmy’s face.

With a deep breath Sam follows Jimmy quietly up the stairs, waits for him to enter his room and then barges in after. Jimmy looks around startled, and Sam focuses somewhere between his lips and his eyes and blurts it out.

“You have to touch me.”

“What?”

“You have to touch me, no-one will touch me, I was alone for so long and no-one will come near me,” Sam’s thrumming with energy, jittery and spiking fear that he tries to keep at bay by being furious. It only works part way.

“I, we, didn't want-”

“I can’t keep being alone, I’m so tired, and if no-one else will it has to be you. _He_ made, I need you to make me too so that I don’t feel so desperate.”

“I don’t want to impose on you, it can’t be healthy. I’m not going to make you be faced with me, I look exactly like him,” Jimmy whispers, sounding harsh and nervous.

“Haven't I done everything you asked? I've stayed in your house and eaten your food, I've let you keep me here, isn't that what you wanted? Do this for me. Please, sir please.”

“Sam, no...”

“What, am I not good enough for you now? Not worthy? Too sullied, too…” he casts around for the right word, “too pitiable, too broken, too dirty now your brother claimed me? He took me, _take me back!”_ he shouts.

“That's not why,” Jimmy starts to say.

“I just want to be good, let me be good for you. I don't know what I'm supposed to do but you could use me, you could - I'd let you,” he says getting more and more desperate.

“You're not here to be used, Sam.”

“Then why am I here? Why won't you let me go?”

“I'm not forcing you to stay!” Jimmy says panicked.

“Maybe you should, maybe that's all I know how to be! I don't know how to think like a free man anymore, I don't know what to do without rules to obey.”

Jimmy looks at him with such sadness then that Sam's anger flares up, taking control of his body. He rushes across the room and slams into Jimmy, and he was always bigger and his strength is coming back and Jimmy isn't fighting. He gets Jimmy with his back pressed to the wall and snarls into his face and then shoves his head into the crook of Jimmy’s neck terrified and trying not to sob.

Jimmy loosely holds onto Sam’s arms and there's nothing between them but heaving breath and pounding hearts. Jimmy isn't chastising him or pulling away but he isn't encouraging either and that _hurts._

So Sam slides to his knees, dares to brace his hands on Jimmys thighs like he was never allowed with Novak and pulls Jimmy’s cock free from his breeches.

His mouth is open and there's ragged breathing from above him and a squeak of a noise as the cock slides between his lips.

“You shouldn't,” Jimmy says in a rush. “Not unless you want to."

But it shouldn't matter what Sam wants, he only knows what he needs and he can't bear to examine why it is but he has to touch, to be full, to be with someone.

He tries to remember how this works, what he's supposed to do. When he was imprisoned it was just mouth open, mind your teeth, try and keep breathing - Novak pounding in as he took all control. But he knows he was good at this before so he puts his tongue and lips to good use, and remembers to slide up and down the familiar length. He can feel when Jimmy starts to throb, he can hear him getting close and he doesn't try to pull away as salty liquid hits his tongue.

After, Sam pulls back gulping for air, and it hits him. Everything he just said, everything he just did; the anger he showed and the liberties he took and he’s not allowed, not supposed to. Jimmy didn’t even _want_ him too and he did anyway and it isn’t going to end well.

It must show on his face, and in his trembling body because there’s a worried noise from the air around him and Sam realises he’s closed his eyes but he can’t bring himself to open them and face whatever’s coming next.

“Sam? What’s wrong?"

He cringes away, trying to curl up small, disappear, don’t be a target.

“Sam, it’s okay, it’s alright.”

“No, no, I’m sorry I know I shouldn’t have."

“It’s fine, we’re fine, it’s all okay."

“I won’t do it again, I won’t I promise,” he opens his eyes, beseeching, “don’t punish me, please. I’m sorry I won’t shout anymore. I won’t do anything you don’t want anymore."

Firm hands grip his face and angle it up but he keeps his eyes low, follows the rules.

“Look at me,” Novak says. Sam winces, clamps his mouth shut, and shakes his head. “Sam, I want you to look at me, I give you _permission_ to look at me."

Slowly, heart in his mouth, he does. And there’s wonder there, kindness and worry too and no small amount of confusion.

“I’m not angry with you.”

Which… must be a lie? He’s always angry. But at the words his body gasps in a bigger breath and his head starts to clear, this is Jimmy, this is freedom; this isn’t his Master and the dark cold place where everything hurts.

“I don’t know what any of this was, or why… which thing it is that's upsetting you the most. And we don’t have to figure it out tonight, but I’m not angry, you’re not in trouble. I would never punish you. Do you believe me?”

Sam tries to let the words sink in and they must take hold a fraction because he’s nodding and he lets Novak pull him up and onto the bed. Jimmy, he lets _Jimmy_ touch him and hold him, curl around him. They lay like that for a long time, and then Jimmy asks a question that Sam can’t understand. He blanks and Jimmy asks again.

“Do you want me to make you feel good too?”

“What do you mean?” Sam’s dubious but the words sound straightforward enough, he can’t remember the depths of why he was so angry earlier, it feels so far away but he knows he wants to be close and held.

Jimmy’s hands skirt lower and Sam freezes but they don’t hurt or grab he just caresses Sam’s cock over his clothes.

“Sex, Sam. Do you want to come too?”

There’s some hesitation and then Sam agrees, wondering what that might feel like when it doesn’t happen after pain or through overstimulation. Jimmy slides down the bed, all broad shoulders and creamy skin and when his mouth closes over Sam’s cock, he thinks it might be a little piece of heaven.

 

* * *

 

Sam wakes the next day still wrapped in Jimmy’s arms and the touch is like a burn. It scorches him and he wants to pull away, really wants to, but his body seems locked up in the stress of waking in an unwanted situation.

“Please,” he whispers, half a moan.

Jimmy hears and hugs tighter, and Sam urges again, “ _please._ ” Jimmy jerks awake then and extracts his arms. Sam lurches away and kneels on the floor (where he should be, where it’s safer) hands clutching tight on his knees.

“Are you… are you alright?” Jimmy asks, and Sam laughs because he really isn’t, but it’s a funny thing to say to someone who’s panicked and cowering.

“Sam?"

“I just, I didn’t want you to touch me anymore.”

“That’s fine?”

“But I couldn’t make myself move.”

“Because you’re scared of how I’ll react?”

Sam nods, eyes downcast.

“And the kneeling, is that,” Jimmy pauses, awkward. “is that something he made you do?”

“Yes,” Sam waits a beat before the words come tumbling out, “I can’t look at him, or talk back, and if I’m waiting, kneeling, then he knows I’m ready and I’m not being stubborn or disobeying. I’m not supposed to have opinions, things don’t have opinions. I only have to say yes and let him do what he wants to, so he doesn’t have to hurt me more.”

“He never had to hurt you, Sam, he chose to. Nothing you did caused him to do such horrific things."

“That’s not true, every time I made a mistake I made him.”

“He chained you up and left you out there, there's nothing you could have done to force him to do any of that. It wasn't up to you how much he hurt you, he would have found a reason to anyway, no matter what you did.”

“But I made it better or worse. I… he said that it was up to me, and I kept forgetting or not obeying quick enough and… I kept talking back-"

“Sam, your existence - your freedoms - should never have been a negotiation in the first place. You understand that don't you?”

“Sometimes." is the only answer Sam can give. Sometimes he knows the standards he was supposed to keep were impossibly high, but sometimes he feels he brought it all on himself.

Jimmy worries his lip, “I’m not going to convince you about all of this very quickly am I?”

Sam doesn’t respond.

“You know he’s gone now, he can’t-”

“I know,” Sam answers quickly, “but I feel wrong all the time.”

“I think you need something to do, some work or something outside of this house, away from me.”

“You want me to leave?” Sam ask quietly.

“Only if you want to, but I want to help you. I could give you a job, get you some money.”

Sam flinches, wanting to retch, and sits back on his heels. He looks Jimmy in the eye voluntarily for the first time in half a year and says, firmly, no hesitation - “I won’t be your whore.”

Jimmy looks shocked, eyes opening wide and then a frown appears. “I wasn’t asking you to be?”

“I’m not taking money for nothing, not for sitting around your house entertaining you, fascinating you with all my shattered emotions!”

“A job, Sam - wages, you would earn them."

“You never wanted me to do that before now.”

“You weren’t well recovered enough.”

“And now I am you want to put me somewhere else out of the way?” Sam doesn’t understand why he’s angry, how this conversation has ended with him riled up and spitting acidic words when really he’s just anxious.

“I want you to have a life, whatever life you choose, even if it’s away from me. I want you to start looking after yourself, but I want you to let me offer you a damn position and actually listen!”

Sam flinches at the ferocity of his words but they're said in frustration not anger and he's finally learning to tell the difference. So he listens, and they reach an understanding.

 

* * *

 

Sam isn’t sure what changes between them after the night they spend together and the talk the morning after but he feels the differences in the rooms and air around them. Some small thing has shifted, like ice cracking on a lake it changes the look of everything. Something cleared the tension and he doesn’t know if it was the sex, or the conversation but he’s grateful for it - whatever it was.

They were so open with each other that day, breaking down barriers that they had both constructed, finally making an allowance to show emotions and share thoughts. Now they are easier and he feels like he can breathe all over again. He is yet to feel the need to repeat the encounter, he likes his own space and he still isn’t sure about being in Jimmy’s presence, but he doesn’t loathe the idea as fervently as he did.

He accepts Jimmy’s offer of work, feeling warm and hopeful at the prospect of spending his days working with the animals. He feels most comfortable around them, hands set to work as best they can be and turning his mind to a task, and another, and another. He feels exhausted, but it’s the good kind of tired that comes from a day of exertion and somehow he feels energised by it even as he climbs tiredly into bed at night.

The dogs stick close always, and Jimmy makes a point of coming to talk to him at least once every day and they exchange pleasantries and Sam tells him about any issues with the horses or the pups. Every now and then, they even reach for each other and lightly grasp hands. Fingers entwined briefly they pause, consider, and then go about their day.

It isn’t much, and it isn’t without its own set of worries, but Sam sees something take shape before him that he never thought he would see again.

A life, a light, something besides pain and dark memories. He still dreads the nightmares, and he still loses the train of his thoughts in panic if he recalls a memory too vividly, but he sets about making what he can out of the rubble of those things.

He wonders if there will ever be more than this. He isn’t sure, but he hopes, and that’s more powerful, more intoxicating, than he ever thought possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there it is. I wasn't sure how to wrap it all up but this is as good as I could make it!
> 
> Please let me know what you think, it's not my most character-true fic I don't think but hopefully Sam's fight and perseverance shone through all the same. Kudos and comments make my world go round!


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